John C. Wright
John C. Wright is a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor. He presently
lives in Virginia, with his wife, the authoress L. Jagi Lamplighter, and their two children.
He has published shorter works in Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine, one of which was
selected to appear in Year's Best SF 3 edited by David G. Hartwell for 1997.

When last we left our heroes, the forces of evil had descended upon Everness House, a portal between the dream world and
ordinary human existence. The hearty band that had bravely tried to draw a "line in the sand" between the nightmare and the
mundane is dispersed, and darkness is poised to envelope the world.

It won't be giving away anything to reveal that good ultimately triumphs, thanks to the determination of an odd
assortment of misfits that includes a Parsifal-like young man of indeterminate viability, a girl of faerie origins, a
maimed warrior, a mythical king, a son of a Greek god, and a turncoat magician, among others. But, while beaten, evil
is not entirely extinguished. It never is. If only because you need it around for the next sequel.

However, I don't think John C. Wright anticipates writing another volume to his War of the Dreaming
sequence, of which Mists of Everness is the second and concluding book. (Actually, the decision to split the
story in two was one made by the publisher, supposedly to ensure retail shelf space among the overwhelming onslaught of fantasy
novels, and, also, by the way, increasing margins from the sales of two 350 or so page hardcovers instead of just one
700 pages or so page fat novel.) For one thing, I can't imagine how he'd top what is so far over the top already.

Wright wrote this two-part novel before his critically acclaimed Golden Age trilogy, a space opera
soaked in philosophical as much as science fictional speculation, and presumably was finally able to sell it based on
the success of what was actually a later effort. I can sort of understand the initial rejection -- I might be equally
reluctant to publish a first time fantasist who stuffs just about everything but the proverbial kitchen sink into a
narrative bursting at the seams with classical allusions and philosophical digressions likely to go over the head of
your typical serial swords and sorcery addict (and I'm not being condescending, because a lot of this went over my
graduate school English-educated head). Making appearances in no particular order of appearance are figures out of
Greek and Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, Masonic iconography, American history, Shakespeare, children's
parables, J.M Barrie, nuclear physics, the classic movie Casablanca and a sex scene in the White House that'll
get Bill Clinton himself hot under the collar, all laced with liberal doses of sitcom-level irony and libertarian leaning politics.

Did I mention that the good guys win? Not just over mythological evil, but corrupt government bureaucracy (it is a
fantasy, after all).

While it is perhaps not fair to compare the first and second parts as separate "books" in what was intended as a single
work, nevertheless what might be considered the second half of a story arc falls a little short of a promising
beginning. In The Last Guardian of Everness, the characters are for the most part humans struggling to
discover, or come to terms with, their magical capabilities. Having realized them in Mists of Everness,
they've become less interesting, more cartoonish cut-outs that primarily serve the purpose of moving the action
along. Moreover, certain characters, notably the Meadow Mouse, a talking rodent straight out of Beatrix Potter,
seem at best superfluous and suddenly disappear from the narrative as soon as they've served their purpose to
advance the plot.

In part, this can be excused by the fact that much of the action takes place in the dream-world, where logic hardly
counts as much as vivid association and symbolic representation. Wright literally lets his subconscious imagination
run wild in that respect. So don't bother to try to figure it out, just enjoy it.

David Soyka is a former journalist and college teacher who writes the occasional short story and
freelance article. He makes a living writing corporate marketing communications, which is a kind of
fiction without the art.